What about a stand alone rail authority with ownership of the infrastructure and the sole responsibility for expanding the rail network. i.e. deciding what goes where and in what order.
Irish Rail can then concentrate on running trains and using their new found spare time to develop their customer service abilities. Their balance sheet would not include the infrastructure. All unesessary personel could be transferred to the new rail authority, which would in actual fact be the civil service, that gets allocated a budget and isn't required to make a profit.
Therefore Irish Rail and its management team can really prove themselves
by operating a service that would be expected to generate profit and fund the purchase of new trains on an ongoing basis.
For over 50 years the problem or rather the rope around the neck has been the infrastructure. Successive Governments have failed to grasp that a busy service at affordable prices combined with a social service remit, does not generate enough money to maintain every nut, bolt, rail, station and bridge....and still make a profit.
Added to this was the complete stupidity of successive CIE management teams that made decisions like the Dieselisation of the network (ahead of most in Europe) while the track was beginning to rot in the ground, signalling systems were collapsing and stations were bordering on derelict in places.
Let Irish Rail run trains and nothing more. They might even get better at it, if its all they have to do.
Leave the infrastructure in the hands of a dedicated body that doesn't have to "pay for itself" and let it decide what rail projects are important. No political interference whatsoever. TDs can wash their hands with the delicate issues. Its actually a ploy that was used by the Government in 1958. Afraid of a backlash at the polls for closing down rail lines, they ammended the transport act so that CIE had full responsibility for which lines should close. Thats why the lads from West Cork came up to Dublin to see Todd Andrews and not the Minister. Thats why there was no backlash at the next election. And finally, thats why we blame CIE for messing it all up.
Mary O' Rourke broke this tradition, when she single handedly tried to design Luas and Seamus Brennan compounded the situation, when he rejected the findings of a Government report (SRR) in relation to the WRC and then stepped in to prevent the closure of some lines in 2002. So due to parish pump politics and a poor rail operator, its all a sorry mess.
Aren't politics wonderful.